Today, a few of us here found the Globe‘s ROB interview with Cultural anthropologist Dr. Grant McCracken really interesting.

Dr. McCracken’s latest book, Transformations: Identity Construction in Contemporary Culture, seems to be based on the argument that we are all building “portfolios” of ourselves … that there is a tendency to define ourselves more liberally, as opposed to an “essential self.” In fact, in one particular passage of the ROB interview, McCraken comments on if his idea of “cloudiness” has an impact on advertising, marketing and branding:

“Yes. Certainly the old idea used to be that marketers had to segment their market, which is to say they had to come up with three or four boxes into which all consumers could be put to define the market.”

Now, read that quote again. Then, go here.

To read the entire McCracken article in today’s ROB, you can go here. Or, you can visit his blog, here (I think it’s one that will be on my reading list).